Last weekend, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin expressed mutual admiration for each other. But their similarities go deeper. Donald Trump’s lead in the race for the Republican nomination reflects the widespread disenchantment of America’s blue collar families with “politics as usual.” Trump’s followers believe that the professional political class has given us crony capitalism, a captive media, unsustainable debt, foreign Main Street; we should remove them and get America moving again. Russia could be on its way to a Donald Trump moment.

At first glance, Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin Inc. seems immune from the Trump “throw the bums out” movement. For the fifteen years of his tenure, Putin has had the support and loyalty of the 85% of Russians who get their news from state TV. They are working-class Russians and “biudzhetniki”–government workers or state pensioners–who are paid from federal or regional state budgets. The 85% are not particularly interested in politics; they dislike cerebral regime opponents who, they think, only want to stir up trouble.

Russia’s 85% seem firmly under thumb of the state. The Kremlin controls TV, from which they get their news. The Kremlin’s electoral commission decides what parties and which candidates can run for office. The Kremlin’s internal security apparatus costs more than national defense. Regime opponents are silenced by jail terms or house arrest. Investigative journalists are murdered. The Kremlin’s liberal opposition is like a gnat, which Kremlin leaders must swat when it gets irritating.

Russia’s Trump danger to the Kremlin elite comes not from liberals, but from Russia’s 85%. They expect Putin to deliver rising living standards, jobs, and economic stability. In return, they’ll not take notice of corruption, mismanagement of state enterprises, favoritism, patronage, or nepotism. They will put up with the convoys of Mercedes, BMWs, and Audis that disrupt traffic or the special license plates for restricted-zone parking as long as they can have their beach vacation in Egypt or Turkey, and their paychecks keep up with inflation. If the Kremlin delivers, they’ll keep their mouths shut and vote for Putin’s United Russia Party in 2016 and Putin himself in 2018.

The Putin-85% compact has unraveled The Russian economy has shrunk for six quarters with no real recovery in sight. Real wages and living standards are falling at annual rates of ten percent, and inflation is in the high teens. Stagnation will worsen if the price of oil falls further. In a word, Putin is not delivering on his promises at a time when trust in Russian TV news has fallen from four in five to two in five. With a loss of public trust in its news broadcasts, the Kremlin will no longer be able to sway public opinion as it has in the past, an example being the tepid support for Putin’s Syria operation.

Seven signs of the developing Trump moment in Russia

There are seven signs that the Trump moment is developing in Russia. First, the 85% now rate economic higher than political concerns. On the list of Russians' top 10 concerns, 78% list inflation, 42% poverty, 36% unemployment, and only 22% mention the strife in Ukraine. Putin’s so-called push to make Russia great again, it appears, has become less important than bread and butter.